TOM JACKSONThe two women in my life, my wife, Nicola,
and daughter, Rachel, both as faithfully
reported here struck down with ill health in
recent weeks, are now much improved, thanks
for asking. And yet neither is back to their
usual midfield dynamo, giving it 110 per cent,
doing a great job for the gaffer, ball of energy
best. Every evening for what seems like ages,
they retreat upstairs to our bedroom after tea
to watch telly together. They’ve just finished
something about interior design fronted by a
fella with an irritating voice. Alan Carr. I’m
sure he’s a nice enough bloke but crikey, his
patter does my head in when I trudge up to
deliver them cups of tea.
Earl Grey.
Which I’m convinced they ask for only
because they know how much it pains me to
brew up that particular noxious blend. Herbal
tea is fine. Green tea, I’m perfectly prepared
to accept, has considerable health-enhancing
properties. Fruit tea? Very tasty. No problem
here. But Earl Grey? Looks like dishwater?
Smells like eau de cologne? Suspiciously
posh-sounding? That hurts. They’re now
stuck into The Great British Sewing Bee.
I’ve given up trying to tempt Rachel away
with war films, her having politely declined
to join me in savouring The Guns of Navarone
or Where Eagles Dare on several occasions.
It’s a bit of a mystery. I was pretty certain she
liked Black Hawk Down and Saving Private
Ryan – well, who wouldn’t? And she said she
really enjoyed The Great Escape... Now I’m
beginning to suspect she was humouring me
all along. Sam and I watch Jason Statham
films downstairs.
When I write “our bedroom”, by the way,
I mean my and Nicola’s notional marital suite.
Conjugal quarters. The connubial bedchamber,
if you will. Yet the reality is, thanks in part to
these ongoing ailments and, yeah, fair enough,
also down to my absolutely world-class snoring,
I’ve barely laid my head there for months.
Because often, they’ve taken to sleeping
up there on the top floor together too. In
which case I get to kip in Rachel’s room. It’s an
arrangement entirely familiar to me, albeit one
I thought I’d left behind 20 years ago, when
Rachel was three and went a bit sniffly.
If Rachel manages to struggle, post-telly,
one flight down to sleep in her own bed, I then
find myself relegated to the sofa in the living
room. Because, while our house rejoices in
three storeys, it has only three bedrooms. And
Sam for damned sure isn’t offering me his.I say Sam and I watch Jason Statham
movies. The fact is we try to watch the great
man at work, but more often than not another
magnificently sensitive, soul-searing Statham
thespian masterclass is interrupted by a
command, either shouted or telephoned,
from 20 feet above our heads.
Another cup of bloody Earl Grey, probs. Or
a hot water bottle. Or, and this is where it gets
awkward, the call isn’t about hot beverages
or hot anything else, it’s about laundry. As in,
“Can you and Sam get the duvet cover out of
the dryer and fold it up?”
Nightmare. Not my area of expertise at all.
Although, having attended a Montessori
nursery, folding ought to be a key element
of Sam’s skill set, Montessori being peculiarly
big on inculcating that ability in its young
charges. And to be fair, left to himself with
something manageable – a napkin, perhaps, or a
handkerchief – Sam can halve and quarter with
the best of them. In a double act with his dad,
however, he gets dragged down to my level.
It doesn’t help that Sam is left-handed and
I’m not. Thus, twisting becomes an issue. As
does miscommunication. Allied to a mutual
lack of spatial awareness, poor dexterity and
general incompetence, the cover is repeatedly
dropped in a bundle and an argument ensues.
Rachel, sensing an opportunity for ridicule,
moving with a speed not entirely consistent
with ill-health, appears on the landing. “Come
quick,” she calls to her mother. “They’re doing
the Chuckle Brothers with the duvet!”
To me, to you, to me, to you, etc.
There followed a long four-way debate
about where the folded duvet cover should
be left to air. Radiator? Banister? Cupboard
door? Complicated fold-up airer thing in the
bathroom? Nicola has firm views on these
matters – firm as in forthright, not firm as in
settled, because I swear they change every
week. We settled on lengthways over the
bathroom door, Sam and I carefully looping
the cover aloft, under instruction. Naturally
it slid straight off into a pile on the floor.
I’ve been cleaning a lot of windows too.
Here’s a tip: lightly scrunched newspaper is the
best method of avoiding smears. Here’s another
tip: if you see a nice fluffy thing conveniently
to hand, don’t use it to wipe the dust off the
windowsills. It isn’t a cloth, it’s your wife’s new
face flannel, bought at some expense.
She’s threatening to teach me ironing soon. n[email protected]‘Due to ongoing
ailments and my
world-class snoring,
I’ve been relegated
to the sofa’
Beta male
Robert Crampton
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